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Global Water Defenders Issue Nuwiaka Declaration in Colombia's Heart of the World

At the request of the Mamos, the spiritual guides of the Sierra Nevada, please share this message far and wide. From the mist-shrouded peaks of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, I’m witnessing an unprecedented gathering of Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders who have come together from five continents to protect a river sacred to […]

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Mexican government offers apology to dam-affected communities

Last week, in a historic moment marked by the town, representatives of the federal and state governments came to the village to deliver an official apology to the townspeople for the imposition of El Zapotillo Dam.

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Guardian of Temaca: “I had to see with my own eyes”

Mexican village wins fight to pierce the megadam that threatened to inundate them

TEMACAPULÍN, Jalisco, Mexico — The fight was clearly worth it, was the feeling of the residents of this colonial town, who showed up punctually to observe the destruction of part of the curtain of the El Zapotillo Dam, a megaproject that threatened to flood the town along with two of its neighboring villages, Acasico and […]

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Mexican Village Sets International Precedent in Water Conflict Resolution

Temaca celebrates victory after winning the right to not be flooded, with reparations for 17 years of human rights violations

After nearly 17 years of creative resistance and six visits from the man who is now Mexico’s president – three of them in recent months — the tiny colonial town of Temacapulín stands poised to become a model in the resolution of water-related conflicts.

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AMLO Comes to Temaca, the Town That Refuses to Drown

Villagers face a crossroads as president puts a monumental decision in their hands

Saturday, Aug. 14, was a day that would be marked as a turning point in the history of Temaca. And the Carbajal sisters, together with scores of other defenders of the historic village, would be ready.

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Turning the Tide on Megadams

Colombian activists and scientists boost resistance to large-scale hydropower by showing their destructive impacts

Miller Dussán is one of those rare people who can just as comfortably traverse the traditional fishing villages and small farms of the countryside as he can the halls of research and policy-making institutions. In Colombia, a dynamic, water-rich country that is highly dependent on increasingly controversial hydropower, Dussán plays a vital role in these two spaces. In […]

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The Woman Who Stopped a Dam  

An Interview with Guadalupe Lara on the Story Behind the Struggle of Arcediano

This plain-spoken country woman became the face of a movement to stop a megadam from destroying her village.

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The Town That Refuses to Drown

The Mexican village of Temaca has become a beacon in the global movement to democratize water and energy management.

This remote Mexican pueblo has stepped into the national spotlight, standing up to a total of eight governors in two different states over the years and taking their fight all the way to Los Pinos, the Mexican White House. If the townsfolk get their way, it will probably be the first time that a mega-dam will be dismantled before it is ever used.

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Megadam: ‘Obsolete technology’ wreaks havoc across the Americas  

A global boom in major dam construction, mainly in developing countries, is currently underway, with an estimated 3,700 now under construction or in the planning stages. Latin America is ground zero for much of this development.

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A village of women in resistance

Forum, photo expo highlight female protagonists of the fight against El Zapotillo Dam

TEMACAPULIN, Jalisco, Mexico — Amid the green of Los Altos de Jalisco, hiding at the bottom of a valley, lies a village in resistance. In Temaca, as it’s affectionately known, a band of women have vowed to fight to the end to preserve their territory and their dignity. The women — and the men — […]

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Temaca to the World: We're Not Going Anywhere

10th Annual Chile Fair carries on a tradition of resistance to a megadam slated to obliterate three villages

TEMACAPULIN, Jalisco, Mexico — It’s been 14 years since the people of this charming colonial town in the Green River Valley of Mexico’s agriculturally rich Jalisco state have gotten a good night’s sleep — 14 years of fighting the thirty-story megadam that poses an existential threat to their precolonial heritage. A generation has nearly grown […]

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Running for Temaca

Hundreds turn out for 11th annual race to support town fighting inundation by hydroelectric dam

We came from all over the republic and beyond to show our support and to run this historic “Carrera con Causa” – Race with a Cause – to enjoy the charms of a threatened yet defiant pueblo and to bask in its famous hot springs. Here are a few images from the 11th annual Carrera […]

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'Projects of Death'

Panama's hydroelectric boom destroys ecosystems, threatens rural way of life

Left: Clementina Pérez and other Ngäbe-Bugle members of the encampment against the Barro Blanco Dam that has flooded several Ngäbe communities and destroyed their sacred Tabasará River ecosystem. (Tracy L. Barnett photo) Story and photos by Tracy L. Barnett for Global Sisters Report Sr. Edia “Hermana Tita” López was living out her mission as a […]

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A wall in their river

Flooded Ngäbe communities continue to fight dam

Left: Weni Bagama, a deputy in the Ngäbe-Buglé Congress and leader in the fight against Barro Blanco, heads for a meeting in the comarca capital of Llano Tugrí. Below, Döegeo Gallardo and Göejet Miranda paddle home through the dead zone that was once a shady, fish-filled river. (Tracy L. Barnett)  Story and photos by Tracy L. […]

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Town lives in shadow of El Zapotillo Dam

Temacapulín residents on alert after Jalisco Secretary of Governance warns them to evacuate

By Tracy L. Barnett For El Daily Post Photo courtesy International Rivers In the strange world of Mexican water politics, things got a bit stranger this week as a citizen’s coalition filed a formal complaint with the state auditor’s office regarding a $4.6 million hydrological study by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) […]

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